


The State of California Without Opening My Eyes

by marauders_groupie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Choking, Choking obvs, Coping, Dirty Talk, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Exhibitionism, F/M, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, No Smut, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Sexual Kink, Second chapter tags:, Sexual Content, Smut, have fun ;)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-10-05 21:36:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20495717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/pseuds/marauders_groupie
Summary: It's not about sex, not really. It's about trust.Bellamy presses his hands to her throat and Clarke finally feels like she doesn't have to be in control of herself anymore.*WTFluff prompt: Enemies to friends to lovers but with choking in their parents' bedChapter 2: Bellamy's PoV and smut.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The biggest TWs for this fic are: Jake's death, mental health issues and PTSD, brief panic attack depictions, and non-sexual choking.
> 
> I've always been fascinated by people using kinks as a means of psychological release. Then I asked myself: okay, but what if they don't end up having sex?
> 
> This fic is what happened.
> 
> Clarke is 18, Bellamy is 23. 
> 
> The title is from Jennifer Willoughby's poem "Memoir So Far."
> 
> Enjoy!

Bellamy Blake has always been a constant in Clarke's life.

For as long as she can remember, he was there. Begrudgingly and grumpily, making jokes about her naiveness and youth, but still there. The son of Aurora Blake, one of Abby's oldest friends. 

So when Abby has to go on a trip, Clarke's not surprised to hear their voices melting in the kitchen. 

She can almost imagine her mom putting away the knives, the high pitched sound of metal on metal. Bellamy with a crease between his eyebrows, jaw locked, full of dark understanding.

"...If you don't mind, of course. You won't have to do anything. Just keep an eye on her. I'm worried about her, Bellamy, with everything that happened."

Her grief is a wild animal. Her grief is in passing. Her grief takes her back to the car accident sometimes. Her grief makes her numb. She denies, she cries, then she settles.

There is nothing for her mother to worry about. Clarke is fine.

"Of course, Abby. Whatever you need."

Clarke gets passed around like a kid with divorced parents these days. It's always someone's duty to babysit her. Octavia at school, Abby right after. Bellamy on the weekends, when even Clarke's mother can't stand the silence between them - the guilt about feeling guilty. 

"Thank you, Bellamy."

When Clarke sees him in the kitchen later that evening, it makes her want to laugh. There's a downpour outside and he's cooking. 

When he sees her, Bellamy flashes her a quick smile and she hangs around, leans on the doorway. 

"What's for dinner, dad?"

He flinches and Clarke laughs. They've never been friends so of course he is shocked. But there's only so much guilt even  _ she  _ can feel.

"Clarke…"

"Relax," she says, takes a seat at the kitchen table with her chin in her palm. "It was a joke."

A part of her feels like grief is such a performative thing. Everyone wants her to be wrecked. She just feels numb and exhausted.

Bellamy is still looking at her like she's a zoo animal, lost for words. 

The old Bellamy would have threatened her with a spoon, told her to fuck off, asked her if she thought she was funny. 

This Bellamy is kinder and so he says, "If you need to talk, you know I'm here, right?"

Clarke hums, closes her eyes. 

"I'm going back to bed. Wake me up when you set the kitchen on fire."

She sleeps in Abby's bed when her mom is away. It's big and comfortable, and Abby's bedroom is the only place in the house devoid of happy family photos. 

Abby took to grief with clinical precision. She cried, mourned, and then deemed it done, removed everything that could remind her of the tragedy.

Clarke sees her dad in the photos and hates herself for driving, for making him sit in the passenger seat.

She sees her dad and she's right there again. Hot and cold and scared to death. 

It's all over before she can press the gas pedal.

Abby's room reminds her of nothing so she stays there, half-asleep like she always is these days. 

She dozes off for a second and then she's so searing hot she needs to get up, heart pounding against her ribcage.

This time, it's Bellamy who wakes her up and she watches him cross the threshold warily, measuring every step against the floor.

It wasn't always like this.

"I liked you better when you weren't trying to be my friend."

He flinches but Clarke smiles, one eye on him, the other closed and pressed into the pillow. Her hair is getting in her face but she can see him anyway. The blurry image is enough. Maybe even too much.

"Who says I'm trying to be your friend, Princess?" he shoots back, sharp, and she smiles.

"Much better."

"Dinner's served."

She manages to come to seated, stretching and working out the kinks in her shoulders, neck, elbows. Everything is sore. 

"What are we having?"

"The Blake family special. Lasagna."

It was always like  _ this _ . 

Bellamy, five years older than her, always wiser and worldlier. He knew everything there was to know about life before Clarke even got a chance to learn.

It didn't get bad until she and Octavia started high school. 

He'd snitch them out to their moms, all the drunken nights, all the boys and girls they've kissed. And when their moms wouldn't do anything, letting girls just be girls, Bellamy took it upon himself to behave like a parent.

Clarke told him to fuck off a few too many times, probably. 

Sometimes she was drunk and her hand hurt in his as he dragged her away from a party where she was about to try weed for the first time. Other times she was just angry, willing to slam car doors and screen doors and all kinds of doors in his face for showing up to her dates.

In retrospect, he probably had a point. She used to be so angry at him, treated him like an enemy. Now she looks at him and understands. Tragedy carves it out of you, turns you into a universal careful and tired person.

She could sense it in him now that she too had it.

"You got homework?" he asks, crossing his arms on his chest.

"Probably. Monty will let me copy his."

Bellamy huffs, trying to fight his instinct to make her go do it right now.

"You know everyone's taking it easy on me, right?" she asks, crossing her ankles and looking at him point blank. 

In this light, he looks like the eternally loyal Bellamy who could be her friend.

He crosses the distance between them and takes a seat at the end of Abby's king size. Looks conflicted as he counters, "You know they shouldn't be doing that, right?"

Clarke shrugs, chuckles. Her throat feels dry.

"I'm glad  _ you're  _ not my teacher. So insensitive."

This conversation is making her feel exhausted. He wants all these answers - everyone wants all these damn answers she can't give. The responsibility is enough to push her into complete inaction, the limbo she's been in for the last six months.

"Clarke, come on. I understand."

Maybe he does, been a parent since his own dad died. He's looking at her now with sympathy in his eyes and Clarke thinks it would be so easy to use him, to make him do anything for her.

She kneels on the bed and reaches for his hands, palms turned downward on his jeans. The denim scratches her skin and turns it red.

His hands are heavy in hers, callused, but she doesn't give it a second thought.

She puts Bellamy's hands on her throat and closes her eyes.

It feels good to be touched again. 

"Clarke, what the hell are you doing?" he hisses, sharp.

Clarke breathes in, lets her lungs expand with it.

"Just trying out a feeling."

Then she squeezes his hands and they press harder against her throat. She's out of breath and it feels good.

"Clarke, no."

But she just wants to use him for this. Can't she get at least that? A moment where she can go limp and human and not have to be in complete control of herself.

His hands around her neck, because he's the only one she trusts to keep her safe.

Her eyes are watering by the time she opens them again, finds him looking at her uncomprehendingly. Looking at her and not understanding.

He hasn't removed his hands from her throat and so she begs, "Please, Bellamy."

_ Please, let me just have this. _

Because when he's choking her, she doesn't have to do anything. Be anything. She can just exist in the moment, heart pumping, lungs fighting for a breath. Doesn't have to be constricted.

When he's choking her, she feels free.

There is a second of understanding on his face and then he's laying her back impossibly soft, straddling her hips and adjusting his grip.

Clarke closes her eyes. She can't breathe but it's somehow easier to exist.

"It's alright. I've got you, Clarke."

So he takes her breath away in her mom's bed, the ever loyal, ever faithful Bellamy Blake.

When he chokes her, she's not in the car accident anymore. She is breathless and dying and alive, the sensation making her lungs pump blood, her heart beat faster. 

It makes her feel unstuck, toeing the line.

"I've got you."

They don't talk about it after. He cooks, she sticks to her room, and Abby comes back home soon enough.

He avoids her whenever he can, pretending that nothing happened, that he didn't choke her right there in her mom's bed even after arguing with her for as long as she can remember.

There's something wrong with her, Clarke realizes at one point, stuck in a limbo between sleep and being awake, that sweet honey point where her brain is shutting off. 

It's not that she wants him to kill her. She doesn't have a death wish.

It's just letting go. 

Acceptance.

***

She breaks her ankle on a fine spring morning, trying to score against Echo Isley's team in a soccer match. 

It's the one thing she's got, soccer, and now that's taken away from her with a cast and a limp.

It's not her mom who drives her back home. It's Bellamy she sees leaning on his old Camaro in front of her school. He looks like he really doesn't want to be there but he's an adult and so he's gotta suck it up.

She smiles at him.

"Driving duty?" she asks and he nods, curt. "I'd kill for some waffles and chocolate milkshake."

He drives them over to Diyoza's diner, this ragged place on the highway between Arkadia and Polis. They sit in cracked red leather booths, order off sticky laminated menus. 

Bellamy pokes on his phone before he realizes she has no intention of doing the same. If it's going to be awkward, Clarke has no problem letting it be.

"How's school?" he asks, arms crossed and staring her down from across the table. 

Clarke pokes her bacon with a fork, says, "Good. My grades are fine. Kane thinks I've got a good chance of making it into Harvard."

At that, Bellamy smiles. It's a real smile this time and she finds herself wanting to talk more about her academic excellence just to get one more off him.

"Hell yeah you'll get into Harvard. If they don't accept you, they might as well close the doors for good."

So she answers all of his questions about school and college and friends and even Echo Isley and the fucking match, but she's so  _ tired _ by the time the sweet waitress Maya brings out the milkshakes that she just wants to curl in her seat, let him carry her out like a ragdoll.

Bellamy gets the check, eyeing her warily, and even offers an arm to lean on. Her cast makes a stupid dull noise as she sinks into his car.

She tried to answer all of his questions about school and friends and normal shit but she is so  _ tired _ , so tired her exhaustion is clawing up her throat, making her stomach turn.

"Hey, Clarke, you good?"

He pulls over almost immediately, must see her curled up in the seat, head down on her knees. 

"Shit, are you- Do you want us to get a bus or something?"

She shakes her head, wants to laugh.

"It's not the car, Bellamy. I'm just so-"

So tired, so overflowing with things she doesn't know how to name, so weighed down it makes her feel like she'll just sink into earth one day and stop existing.

"Fuck, I tried. I  _ tried. _ I just can't, Bellamy."

He has a dark look on his face even before she's voiced what she needs.

"Choke me, please."

He does because he could never deny her anything.

The moment he uncrosses her limbs for her, makes her uncurl, puts his hands on her is the moment she feels it. 

The calm, the absolute absence of everything but  _ this _ \- the moment of her body fighting to stay anchored, of thoughts and feelings pouring out of her mind like a river.

Her eyes roll into the back of her head and it's good, it's great, Bellamy Blake choking her in the car behind the diner after they've had waffles and bacon and a milkshake, she tried so hard to answer his questions about school and friends but she is t i r e d.

Now she feels nothing but bliss, all the thoughts having ran out of her head like they could stain his seats blue.

She opens her eyes and he's still close by, pupils blown wide.

"Are you a virgin, Clarke?" 

She nods.

"Would you like to stay one?"

"I don't want to  _ not  _ be a virgin," she says, scrunches up her nose. "This isn't about sex, Bellamy. This is just about feeling good."

The way he looks at her then makes her think that maybe he understands.

***

Impossibly, Clarke and Bellamy become friends.

He texts her before school now, asks if there's anything he can get her on his way to work.

Most of the time, she doesn't want anything. Other times, she says he can bring her milkshake if Diyoza's diner is on his way.

_ Are we friends now? _

She types it one afternoon, hits send before she's thought it through. 

These days, Bellamy comes over to have dinner with her, help her with homework. She thinks it's the only way he knows how to build human connections; he makes himself useful.

_ We've always been friends, Princess. Do you need anything? _

At school, no one knows how to talk to her. 

Octavia sits with her at lunch and Clarke thinks she's afraid of even laughing too loud. Clarke doesn't participate in conversations but no one tries to include her anyway. They all behave like this is how it's supposed to be.

Lonely.

"You and O haven't gone out in a while," Bellamy mentions one day as he's driving her to get her cast removed. 

"Yeah. I don't feel like going to parties. They're too loud."

And it's not like Octavia invites her anyway. She's happy to come over and watch TV, but Clarke doesn't blame her for not knowing what to do with herself around Clarke.

"Do you want to go to the cinema with me then?"

He's smiling at her in that oddly friendly way he has now. It's only odd because she's never seen it directed at her before.

"You don't have to do this, Bellamy."

"I want to. I like your company."

So it's not like their friendship only revolves around Clarke feeling overwhelmed and begging him to choke her.

He buys her popcorn, laughs into the carton when she comments on movies they see on matinees. He doesn't approve of cutting classes but he always takes her when she needs to get away.

Everyone's lenient, except Bellamy who always makes sure she knows the consequences of her actions.

"As long as you know what you're doing, Princess."

"I know, Bell. Don't worry."

When Abby is working the night shift, he even lets her sleep over. Tells her about his day until she feels good and sleepy, draped across his lap on the couch in the Blakes' little blue house.

"So, what's up with you and my brother? Are you like-" Octavia scrunches up her nose, "dating?"

Clarke wants to laugh. It's the most substantial thing Octavia has asked her in months.

"My mom put him on Clarke duty."

"Oh."

In the months that follow, she learns so much about him. The way he talks, sure of the way he strings words together. The way he walks, comfortable in his skin, steady. The way he laughs, like the idea of it alone surprises him. 

_ Everything _ gives him away.

And then one day, a month before Clarke is supposed to graduate-

"We can't do this anymore."

She's eating Ben & Jerry's in her pajamas and at first, the words don't connect. She looks at him and knows what he means by the look on his face alone.

"It's not normal. You're 18."

On his couch, he is tiptoeing around her like walking on eggshells. A safe distance between them. He won't even look her in the eye.

Clarke rolls her eyes. "It's five years, Bellamy. You're not in a retirement home."

It makes her feel self-conscious all of a sudden. It was so easy with Bellamy; laugh at him when he's being a nerd, talk about the future, ask him to choke her when the bad thoughts appear.

Now she thinks it was never easy. To her, this was just a means to an end - she felt bad, he made her feel good. There were times when she wanted to kiss him, run her fingers through his hair, but it was never an overpowering sensation. 

Suddenly, she understands. 

"Is this because we don't have sex?"

It makes her feel so small and embarrassed and young because  _ of course  _ he'd have needs. He's 23, gorgeous, could have anyone in Arkadia if he wanted and there he was, choking her regularly without any payoff.

This time he does look at her, eyes wide and head shaking left to right, nearly reaching for her. "No, that's- Clarke, that's not it."

Now he's soft and understanding and it breaks her heart.

"It's because you've known me since forever. You're 18 and grieving. I can't take advantage of that anymore. It's not right."

He drives her home after, pauses after pulling into the driveway. His shirt is pale blue and she remembers him buying it - sixteen and secretly proud of the first money he'd earned mowing Mrs Green's lawn.

"So we're not going to be friends anymore?"

Only a part of her misses his hands. The rest of her misses the feeling of Bellamy Blake being her friend.

Bellamy hangs his head, defeated.

"I'm sorry."

Somehow, she understands.

***

Two weeks later, she's washing the dishes when she realizes that she can't move. 

Her heart is lodged in her throat, beating so fast it might jump out. Suddenly, she's clenching and crying and the water keeps flowing like nothing's happening at all.

Her mom finds her standing there, the water leaking through the front door, and calls the ambulance immediately.

The doctors are patient with her. Clarke does her best to be patient with them, as well. 

It was going to happen - it was supposed to happen. When she let it all out, it felt like there was nothing sitting on her chest anymore.

"You're very self-aware," Sinclair tells her in one-on-one therapy. She's not sure it's a good thing. 

"I know I need help, yeah. You're doing your best."

"You're not supposed to make  _ me  _ feel good about my skills as a therapist," he says, smiling conspiratorially. 

They gave her a mint-colored bracelet and she picks at it now.

"How about we make a plan so  _ you _ feel better?"

So they do. 

Clarke comes back home. She missed her graduation and Octavia assures her it wasn't anything special anyway.

"Kane and Jaha gave two long-ass speeches and we got drunk."

Clarke is not supposed to get drunk anymore. She and Sinclair made a real, adult coping plan. There was no room in it for fantasies of alcohol. 

She's started painting again. When she feels overwhelmed, she forces herself to take a seat and four deep breaths.

Octavia panics the first time she sees her do that and Clarke misses Bellamy. 

He'd have understood, he'd have praised her for being so mature about her mental health, taking all the time she needs.

When she tells her mom she's not going to Harvard, Abby doesn't mind. 

"You have time, honey."

She enrolls into Arkadia's community college instead. Takes painting and art therapy classes. She catches herself beaming when she selects the classes online.

She's actually  _ excited _ .

Come fall, all of her old friends are gone, on their way to their respective colleges, but Clarke makes new ones.

She visits her dad once a month, brings flowers and that $2 liquor store wine he claimed was the best in the whole county. 

Everyone says it's not her fault but Clarke knows it's going to take some time to really understand that. 

At the rock bottom, she gives herself time and patience. 

Some days are better, others make her feel like that's it - she's going to be stuck in this moment, reliving it like a twisted version of Groundhog Day.

Then she wakes up feeling better, if a little antsy, and she knows she just has to take it one day at a time.

She stumbles upon Bellamy in one of the community college hallways sometime around October, accidentally crashes into him. All of his books and her art supplies go flying.

He's surprised to see her, but then she starts laughing and he hangs his head, sheepish, helping her collect her supplies.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, passing him a heavy book whose covers have seen better days. Some of the paint on her hands leaves stains on them, but Bellamy doesn't seem to notice.

"I'm taking history and teaching classes."

It hits her like a two-ton truck, how little she really knows about him. 

"I never went to college, Clarke," he clarifies when she cocks her head, curious. He's smiling at her placatingly. "I can take the teacher's exam with just a few more classes."

"You'd be a great teacher."

He beams at her. Bellamy Blake literally  _ beams _ at her and some of the tension he's been holding in his shoulders dissipates.

"What about you?"

It's a heavy subject but like always, Bellamy doesn't shy away from unpacking it.

"It's a long story. You have time for lunch?"

They go to Diyoza's diner, eat their weight in french fries and burgers before Clarke tells him about the last few months.

"I heard you were in the hospital. Octavia told me. I went, but well, Abby was with you. She told me you'd be fine. I didn't think it was my place to intrude."

Clarke smiles, dips a fry in ketchup. "It's fine. I feel much better now. In a way, I needed it."

"How are you liking Ark College?"

"It's great. Niylah's an amazing teacher, and did you know John Murphy is in my Art Analysis class?"

They catch up over safe territory, people they both know from high school and roaming around Arkadia. It's not a small town but it's not big either; it feels like the two of them are somewhere far away, looking from the outside in.

It turns into their routine. 

Their classes end around the same time so sometimes Bellamy drives them to lunch and home after. A few weeks pass and then it's Clarke's Ford they take.

The first time he sees her behind the steering wheel, Bellamy's jaw drops and Clarke grins at him.

The months behind her were some of the most tiring, some of the purest months she'd ever experienced. It became easy - there was nowhere to go but up.

They celebrate Bellamy's birthday in December, the windows fogging up and snow already forming a thick cover on the roads. 

Everyone's there, or at least everyone Bellamy cares about. Clarke plays hostess with him, brings everyone drinks while sipping her apple juice.

"You don't drink anymore?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Nope. I can have fun without alcohol. You of all people should be happy about that."

He smiles. "I am, just wasn't expecting it."

She's one of the last people who stay over and then the road is too slippery to drive. Bellamy offers his bed and Clarke takes it, feeling sleep draping over her like a thick cloud.

He gives her one of his shirts that smell distinctly Bellamy, a sensation she never knew she'd mapped before. 

"You can stay," she says when he's idling, on his way out but somehow not wanting to leave her. 

She understands. She doesn't want him to leave either.

"Clarke…"

"It's fine. Look, I'll make a line and everything." She takes his pillows and separates the bed into two halves.

Bellamy chuckles ruefully but climbs in, stays on his side. Clarke can still feel the heat of him warming her up to her core. 

It feels good, being Bellamy's friend.

In the morning, she wakes up with his nose pressed against her neck and their limbs all tangled up. 

"Bellamy…" she tries but he smiles against her skin and something very soft, very warm unfurls in her.

"Five more minutes, babe."

When he wakes up, he's embarrassed but she brushes it off. Chalks it up to him being asleep. 

It's March before she realizes that she has been around him for so long and never, not once, thought to ask him to put his hands on her again.

"You hated it, didn't you?" she asks him on one drive over, right after their classes have wrapped up and they let Murphy tag them along to meet his girlfriend over coffee. They're both tee-totalers, impossibly, and they're better people than Clarke could have ever imagined.

Even Bellamy seems surprised to see Murphy so serene these days.

"Hated what?"

She shifts into second gear, checks her corners and takes a turn.

"Choking me."

He's quiet for a while. Mrs Green waves at them from her porch and Clarke waves back.

It feels okay to talk about it now. 

"I… It was a bad way to give you what you needed. I was an idiot for ever doing it without talking to you first but you seemed so sure. And then I realized that you needed help, but not the kind of help I could give you."

He takes a deep breath and she can see him out of the corner of her eye, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"So no, I didn't hate it. I hated that it had to happen like that."

Clarke hums, pulls over in front of his house. 

Aurora's always working these days and with Octavia gone, Bellamy's alone more often than not.

"I needed release, Bellamy. Thank you for giving that to me."

They've both done a lot of growing, she realizes. 

It's March and her hands are stained with paint again. It's March and he looks at her like she is his equal.

So Clarke leans across the gap between the seats, leaving just a few inches between them. He's looking at her behind the thick-rimmed frames she helped him pick out back in January, but he's not moving away.

"You were right. That was grief. That was guilt. But not this time. This time, I want to do things right."

Bellamy Blake smiles at her and it's all she can do to stop herself from laughing, links his fingers with hers and nods.

He kisses her and it's how it was always supposed to be. He kisses her and his hand is steady on her neck, closing the gap between them and smiling into it. He tastes like coffee and chocolate she sneaked into his bag this morning, makes her want to go all mellow and dopey with how much she feels his absolute  _ rightness _ in the seat next to hers.

This time around, they do things right. 

He tells Aurora and she tells Abby, opening themselves up to merciless teasing.

Even Octavia is happy, laughing when Clarke tells her over Skype. 

"I'm glad you finally pulled your head out of your asses."

Not a lot changes. 

They still drive to college and back together. She still eats bacon with waffles and milkshakes, and Bellamy still shakes his head and tells her she'll get an ulcer.

Only this time, she gets to kiss him whenever he makes her laugh. 

She gets to fall asleep with him and wake up with him and feel a little better with each passing day. 

So the next time he does take her breath away, it's because they both want it. 

Not because she doesn't know how to survive without it.


	2. The State of California Is the Color of Flying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy's POV + smut. | It's a simple equation: if Clarke needs it, Bellamy will provide. Even if it means choking her so she feels a little less overwhelmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got an ask on [Tumblr](https://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com) about writing Bellamy's PoV for this fic: "I'm curious about what he was thinking the whole time."
> 
> You and me both, buddy. ;)
> 
> I also added some smut because why the frick not? 
> 
> Enjoy!

Clarke Griffin is born when he is five years old and Bellamy knows from that point onward that she is his person.

All the Blakes have a way of adopting people. It’s not particularly dignified, and most of the time their words come out all wrong, but it’s something that weaves its way into everything they do.

Like how Clarke and Octavia are ten and he is fifteen and the little princess wants to paint his nails, so Bellamy picks the color and admires her choppy skills.

"It looks gorgeous, Princess. Thanks."

He spends an hour trying to remove the glitter before school the next day, but Clarke is his person so he doesn't even mind Murphy's teasing about nail polish. Her happiness comes first.

Then O and Clarke turn fifteen and he can see them repeating his mistakes. It's not that he goes out of his way to stop them from dating or trying weed, but it's that he knows better.

He is somehow always in the neighborhood, too.

"Fuck off, Bellamy! We didn't call you to swoop in and save the day!" Clarke tells him, starting up a storm in his shitty Camaro, beating at the dashboard to punctuate her words and make them seem all that rougher.

She's grown, but in a strange way. Like she was born with a hunger to do everything, cram hundreds of lives into one. 

Like she needs it to keep going.

"So you _ want _to get high around jerks like Mbege? You think that's smart? You think that's safe?"

She takes it as a challenge, shoots him a sardonic smile. "Like you haven't done the same. Don't try to be a saint, Bellamy, the halo is crooked. It's a shitty look on you."

He doesn't know why her words hurt so much until they've dropped her off at the Griffin house, Jake waving at him from the porch with exasperation, and Octavia climbs into the passenger seat.

With Octavia, Bellamy knows what to say. His sister is just chasing excitement. 

Clarke is… well, he's not sure what _ she _is chasing, but it's something deeper.

It's why he worries so much.

"You're _ my _brother, Bell. So lay off Clarke. She didn't sign up for your shit."

When they were kids, it was easy. The worst that could've happened was getting a scrape on the playground.

Now the world unfolds before them, and there are so many new ways to get hurt.

And Bellamy doesn't know how to stop caring about Clarke's welfare. Despite the fact that she is not his sister. Despite the fact that she doesn't need another parent.

She may not be his sister, but she is his person all the same.

*

Jake Griffin dies when Clarke and O are eighteen, and the world comes to a screeching halt.

"Car accident?" Bellamy presses out, his mother's face sullen across the kitchen table. "Who was driving?"

"Clarke."

When his dad died, Bellamy was as far away as possible. It was a bus accident. There was nothing anyone could do. Like most tragedies, it was pointless.

But Clarke… Clarke driving… It makes his head spin and his chest hurt.

She doesn't want to talk to him the first time Abby asks him to look after her one Saturday afternoon. The lines between her eyebrows are more prominent; they've all grown older in a single day.

These days, Clarke talks to no one. 

She walks past him in the hallway of the Griffin mansion, haunting the home like a ghost. There are still so many happy family photos. The wrecked Ford is in the driveway.

Bellamy spends the afternoon trying to fix it. 

He pops the hood and takes off his shirt when the sun starts beating down on his neck, wipes the grease off his hands.

"It'll need a few parts, but I can fix it," he tells Clarke when she steps out onto the porch. The sun is shining and she is wearing her thickest sweater. Her wrists are impossibly thin.

Bellamy waits for an answer that never comes.

Instead, she closes the door on her way in. He's left with his hands and grease and the specter of her.

No one knows how to be around her, and a part of him feels pity. The other part understands that she needs someone who can tell her what to do.

"Let's do your homework. You got math? I loved math."

She stares at him, blank. The stitches on her forehead look darker whenever he looks at her. She catches her reflection in the mirror and frowns.

"Come on, Princess. You need to do something_._" _ Otherwise, it'll all swallow you up until you're gasping and grasping and falling apart._

A little stunned, she hands him her book. There's Monty Green's handwriting, answers penciled in with blue ink.

Bellamy crooks an eyebrow at Clarke, feeling his lips tug up in a smirk.

She just shrugs, croaks out, "He wants to help."

"_That _ isn't going to help."

"Right." She flashes him a watery smile, wincing when her eyebrows move and the stitches on her forehead tighten. "Whatever."

*

It goes on like that for a while. 

Clarke goes back to school, and Bellamy is busy with his own college classes. He only sees her sometimes when he's picking up Octavia, standing a bit to the side, always too far removed to actually be there.

He wants to help, but doesn't know how. 

She's not his sister - she's a person he barely knows now. All he's got is the fact that they've both lost their dads, and needed the kind of help no one in the world could provide.

Still, he makes himself useful. Abby calls and he's right there.

"I have to go on a trip. Could you look after Clarke?"

Clarke herself is nowhere to be found.

"Of course, Abby. Whatever you need."

He cooks and offers to listen, but Clarke doesn't want it. She jokes, and it's all a part of the process, but it doesn't make her half-asleep demeanor any less frightening.

It's not grief. 

Clarke just looks defeated.

When he serves the dinner, he comes to find her in her mother's bedroom. The covers are strewn everywhere; it's impossible to tell where they end and Clarke begins.

Bellamy tries to enter softly but she speaks and it catches him by surprise.

"I liked you better when you weren't trying to be my friend."

Clarke smiles from the pillow, one clear blue eye on him.

"Who says I'm trying to be your friend, Princess?" he shoots back, sharp, and she smiles wider. 

"Much better."

"Dinner's served."

She sits up slowly, carefully, as if arranging her bones around her situation. It's strange, how worried this makes him, how closer it makes him feel to her.

He can understand this: caution and fear, the desperate need to avoid any new tragedy, even if it's just a sore muscle. 

"What are we having?"

"The Blake family special. Lasagna."

Clarke hums, her gaze still fixed on him. It looks like she's assessing him, and a part of him wants to reach for her, show her he's there. His person, his person, his-

"You got homework?" he asks instead, retreating to a safe territory. 

"Probably. Monty will let me copy his."

_ Stupid_, he wants to shout. _ Stupid. The meaningless little tasks are what's going to save your life._

"You know everyone's taking it easy on me, right?" she asks then, eyes sharp and steady. She knows what's happening; in a different scenario, it might even be funny.

Everyone's trying to make it easier on her, and she just needs some normalcy.

He steps forward then, taking a seat on Abby's huge bed. He's careful to leave enough space between them, an awareness he's never felt before. 

"You know they shouldn't be doing that, right?"

Clarke shrugs, chuckles. 

"I'm glad _ you're _ not my teacher. So insensitive," she responds, trying to make it sound like a joke. It just comes off as tired. When she leans back against the headboard and closes her eyes, her exhaustion crashes over both of them.

It's a terrifying thing, seeing her so desolate.

She used to be capable of putting the fear of God into him with a single glare. 

Now it looks like she's decided to let everything pass her by, and it makes something very small in Bellamy stand up and demand to comfort her.

"Clarke, come on. I understand."

For a second, he thinks she might believe him, propped up against the headboard in a room devoid of reminders, her hair a mess, the circles under her eyes dark enough to extinguish the light in her gaze.

Then she leans forward, impossibly slow. Bellamy can see every muscle move; shifting her weight to her knees, moving like a ghost.

She takes his hands.

Her fingers are featherlight around his. The contrast between her pale fingers clutching his dark wrists and his strong palms overshadowing her fragile hands is jarring. She looks so small, and her grief seems so big. 

Then she puts his hands on her throat and closes her eyes.

"Clarke, what the _ hell _ are you doing?"

Every nerve in his body stands on edge. He’s aware of it all; her shaky breathing, the electricity running through his fingertips.

She leans back like a doll whose strings have been cut. 

When she exhales, so does he.

"Just trying out a feeling," she tells him, quiet. With his hands on her throat, she looks like the world's most content and misunderstood creature.

She presses down on his hands, tightening his grip, and the spell breaks. "Clarke, _ no_."

When she finally opens her eyes again, her hair fanning on Abby's expensive damask sheets, they're full of tears. 

He used to be so damn good with scrapes and butterfly bandages. He doesn't know how to help this strange new ache.

"Please, Bellamy."

The desperation in her voice defeats him. He doesn't think. 

He acts.

Bellamy places a palm on the small of her back and lays her down gently. It hurts how easy it is, she's almost weightless in his arms. Her body is light, and her heart must be very heavy.

Then he straddles her hips and adjusts his grip. There is nothing to think about. She needs him.

"It's alright. I've got you, Clarke."

*

After Abby comes back, Bellamy avoids Clarke but finds that he doesn't have to. 

She doesn't call, doesn't text. He had his hands on her throat until she opened her eyes and burrowed into his body, searching for heat.

Then they ate dinner like nothing happened.

A part of him thinks it's wrong. He's always felt a responsibility for her. Doing this - choking her - feels like he's twisting something, turning something pure into something _ wrong_.

But then the other part of him tells him that it's alright. It's always been a very simple equation; if Clarke needs, Bellamy will provide. 

The thought of it being sexual doesn't even cross his mind until she’s climbing into his car with a sprained ankle and tears in her eyes. 

At first, he thinks it must be the car - his Camaro that creaks, sputtering engine that reminds her of all the wrong sounds. Then she shakes her head, like the thought is ridiculous, choking on words that won’t come out.

She’s folding in on herself right after she told him things are looking up, devouring her burger with a milkshake on the side. And then something must have cracked because she’s looking so goddamn overwhelmed right now that Bellamy gets the urge to hurl something at the sky just because Clarke Griffin does _ not _deserve this shit. 

So here they are, in his fucking Camaro, Clarke curled up in the passenger seat, shaking and aching and begging him to help her the only way she can be helped now.

"Choke me, please."

God, it's not even a question for him and Bellamy wants to hate himself, but he can't.

He uncrosses her limbs gently, helps her lean back into the seat. It’s the only clean thing in this car; the seat where Clarke Griffin is sitting in her school-mandated white polo and beige trousers. She’s all gold and tears when she bares her throat for him, fervent and unashamed in a way he’s never seen her before. 

Something in him stirs when he presses his hands to her throat. She lets out the quietest moan and his shameful want cleaves him in two. It’s not even the fact he’s choking her that’s arousing him.

It’s the fact he hasn’t seen her enjoy something so much in a long time.

The cars pass them by, the diners laugh on their way back home, and he feels like eons pass before she finally opens her eyes.

He can’t help himself, has to ask.

“Are you a virgin, Clarke?”

She nods.

"Would you like to stay one?"

Bodies, bodies he’s good at. He could make her smile, he’s pretty sure. It’s the one thing he’s actually worth a damn for. Still, the question burns on his tongue as he watches her expand, take up space. At least now she smiles and rolls the window down.

He collapses back into the seat, running a hand through his curls. The cold air washes them clean.

"I don't want to _ not _ be a virgin,” she explains, frowning like she’s still trying to understand it herself. “This isn't about sex, Bellamy. This is just about feeling good."

He can’t blame her for that. If it’s the only way for her to feel good, then he’s more than happy to start the car and take her back home.

In the driveway, her gaze rests on him for a very long time.

“Thank you.”

He smiles at his hands on the wheel. “Nothing to thank me for, Princess. Get some sleep.”

*

After that night behind Diyoza's diner, Bellamy gives up.

He and Clarke become friends.

It’s easy, being friends with her. She makes weird jokes, knows a lot of information she logically wouldn’t have to. Comes to his home with paint stains and asks him to choke her like it’s the least shameful thing she’s ever needed.

That part he still struggles with.

Most of the time, they’re regular people. Bellamy cooks and Clarke paints her nails. When she calls him in the morning and says she doesn’t feel like going to school, they catch old movies at the Ark Cinema together. She laughs at Humphrey Bogart and he pretends to fawn over Marilyn Monroe just so he can see her hide a smile in her popcorn. 

It’s easy. So easy, in fact, that he can’t help but to feel guilt clawing at him for all the times she asks him to choke her, and he obeys. 

At the end of the day, his responsibility wins. When he tells her, he watches her expression change to crestfallen on his couch.

She looks small, in her pajamas, a spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s cherry garcia on its way to her mouth. It’s going to make her tongue red, and he’ll tease her just so she would stick it out at him. 

"It's not normal. You're 18."

She throws him a wry smile, closing her mouth around the spoon. "It's five years, Bellamy. You're not in a retirement home."

But it’s not the age. It’s the fact that she trusts him. And he can tell that choking isn’t going to help. It’s just a temporary comfort.

He’s about to speak but she’s quicker, her voice small in a strange way.

“Is this because we don’t have sex?” 

The question shocks him. The way the thought brings hurt to her voice is all the more reason to stop it while there's still time.

"No, that's- Clarke, that's not it." He tries to soften his voice, but she still looks so damn sad that he wants to hold her and apologize. "It's because you've known me since forever. You're 18 and grieving. I can't take advantage of that anymore. It's not right."

She needs to get better, and she won't get better by looking to his hands.

Somehow, he manages to get her home. She doesn’t even change, just gets up and puts her jacket on. When they’re sitting in the car in front of her house, she asks one final question:

"So we're not going to be friends anymore?"

He'll miss her too, but he doesn’t say it. Instead, he takes the cowardly way out.

"I'm sorry."

*

Two weeks later, Bellamy finds out Clarke’s in the hospital and he gets the urge to tell his mother everything. 

He can’t. The responsibility is his to bear.

So instead of going to the hospital, he listens in on Octavia’s phone conversations. Quick updates about seeing her, about her state.

“She doesn’t look bad,” she tells Monty. “She said she missed you.” 

Bellamy even texts Abby once or twice for updates, offering to help and hoping she’ll give him a menial task that gives him an opportunity to see Clarke without giving her false hope.

_ No need. Clarke is resting. Say hi to your mother. Love, Abby._

When she misses her graduation, the gap where she should be - beaming with a theatrical cap on her head - Bellamy drives himself to the hospital.

He sits in his car for the longest time. Even the security guard crosses the parking lot and leans on his window, eyeing him with a mixture of sympathy and worry.

“Hey man, everything alright?” 

It’s not alright. He was supposed to protect her. She trusted him.

And then he left her when she needed him the most.

If he’d been there, he could’ve helped her. She wouldn’t have felt alone, wouldn’t have waited on the kitchen floor for two hours before her mother found her. Wouldn’t have packed her pajamas all on her own.

She would have someone to lean on.

So looking at the hospital entrance, Bellamy knows he has no right. There are people in this hospital who actually _ did _something to help their loved ones.

He is just pitying himself.

"Yeah, sorry."

Clarke is better off without him anyway.

She’s released two days later, and Octavia sits Bellamy down. 

She looks concerned herself, telling him everything like she’s back in elementary school and her big brother knows all the secrets of the universe.

"She's different, Bell. Like…" his sister grasps for words, waving her hands around uselessly. "When she gets anxious, she does this counting breaths thing. She feels _ older_. I don't know how to be around her."

He feels relieved she's okay, but he can't let it show. Instead, he offers advice.

"She just needs a friend, O. Don't make it weird. She'll tell you what she needs."

It's Clarke. She's always told them what she needed. Even if it meant something they couldn’t give.

It’s October when he sees her again.

He’s walking down the community college hallway when she crashes into him and sends their books flying.

When he looks up, he can barely recognize her. Her hair is shorter, chopped down to curls, and she’s not as thin. If he touched her now, he wouldn’t have to worry about her dissipating like smoke.

And she’s beaming at him. 

“Bellamy. It’s good to see you.”

They catch up over fries and milkshakes at Diyoza’s Diner, a smile playing on her mouth as they cross the threshold. His mind goes immediately to the first time they were here, the first time she voiced what she needed, and Clarke smiles because she knows.

This time, it’s Clarke who asks questions. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you wanted to be a teacher.”

She looks shocked by it, and Bellamy hangs his head, toying with the straw. This awful dinner combination she loves makes him laugh without fail.

“What can I say? We had other things to talk about.”

_ We had other things to do, _he wants to say and bites it down with a pit of desire forming in his stomach. She looks firmer now, accepts his challenge and grins.

When they make it back to his car, his hand resting on her back naturally, he’s split between feeling afraid and hoping she’ll ask him to choke her.

“And you won’t believe this - Murphy, John Murphy, is in my art therapy classes.”

All she does is share gossip, and tells him when to make a turn as though he could ever forget where her house is.

She doesn’t linger in the car. As soon as he pulls over, she grabs her supplies and smiles at him. There’s something about her now, something he can’t quite put a finger on, but he’s drawn to her energy like a moth to the only damn candle in the town. 

“Thanks for the dinner. Let’s do it again sometime.”

He finds himself smiling properly for the first time in ages. “I’d love to.”

It turns into a ritual. They wait for the other’s classes to end, and then they head to Diyoza’s diner. After that, it’s straight home.

“Just taking care of you,” she teases him, her feet propped against his dashboard. It’s the one thing that didn’t change: she still loves leaving marks all over his car. “You’re old. You gotta be in bed by 9pm.” 

Mentally, Bellamy tallies all the ways she’s changed. How steady she feels now, at ease even when she feels overwhelmed. Fridays are the worst, the stress of the week compounding and making her sit in his car a little longer before they grab dinner.

“Can I do something?”

She shakes her head, smiles. “No. I’m fine.”

She counts her breaths and keeps going. Ditches liquor for juice, med school for art classes. Doesn’t look to him when she needs help; helps herself instead.

In a strange way, he is proud of her.

Her life is growing again, and it’s such a contrast to what she looked like a year ago that Bellamy finds himself falling in love, impossibly and against all odds. It’s a bad course of action but he can’t help it. 

One night, Bellamy’s sitting at her kitchen counter and watching her mix the ingredients for her dad’s chili when she asks: “You remember the night you busted my date with Finn?" 

"Finn Collins?" he asks, leaning back in his chair with a smirk. "As far as I remember, Princess, you were happy about it when you found out he had a girlfriend back home."

Clarke throws him an exasperated look. "Not what I meant."

"Sure, I remember."

"You yelled at me," she says, but it's not accusatory. Just another fact that makes him feel like he doesn't get to do this. He has a responsibility. How is he going to take care of her when he could break her heart?

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, not one of your best moments. But you cared. Somehow, you always cared. I couldn't get it then. Why would you care about me? I'm not your sister."

He grimaces at that. "Thank God for that."

Clarke laughs, throwing her head back. "Yeah, thank God. But still… you've always been weird. Like you are responsible for me."

"I do. You're my-"

Clarke raises an eyebrow. The chili stews on the stove, threatening to boil over, but she waits him out.

"Clarke. You're my Clarke."

Something in the air dissipates. Clarke hums and turns around to finish the chili. In her kitchen, with her recovered life and paint-stained jeans, she has never looked better.

*

The problem is: he loves Clarke.

He has _ always _loved Clarke.

When they were kids, it was kid stuff. He let her get away with everything. When you're a kid, the concept of love is different. It all boils down to belonging.

When Bellamy grew up, he protected her. After his dad died, it was the only way to feel useful and keep himself afloat.

Now, he's older and he's selfish. 

He wants the feeling of flying, the jagged edges, the feel of her skin on his. Moments only the two of them can share. Like when she slept over and made a line between them with pillows, wrapped in his shirt. When he said "Five minutes, babe" and tried to apologize, but it fell short.

In every version of reality, he sees himself protecting her.

But wanting her is different.

Wanting her is laughing at a stupid joke and counting the number of fries she's eaten, making sure she eats enough, even when she's tired.

Wanting her is sitting next to her as she navigates the streets of Arkadia, sure behind the wheel. Playing with the music, trying to get a rise out of her.

She laughs at him, haphazardly, but entertains the ridiculousness. "Arctic Monkeys? Really, Bellamy?" 

Wanting Clarke Griffin is never knowing what to do with his hands.

They drive around Arkadia now, the snow melting away. Their town is all grey and pink and electrified. He watches her at red lights when he's the one driving, lets himself touch her knee, just rest his palm where he can feel her skin.

Clarke plays along, humming to the tune and smirking at him.

At some point, she apologizes. Kisses him. Says she wants to do it right.

Other times, she licks her lips and says: "I've always loved your hands best."

"Careful, Princess," he warns, that hand on her knee trailing up. He still doesn't know how to do this, but he wants to, and God, that has got to count for something.

Clarke throws her head back when he reaches the sweet honey point between her thighs, runs his fingers through her folds, and smirks at the windshield when she moans.

"Bell…"

"Nuh-uh, babe. If you want something, you've got to use your words."

He loves seeing her devastated like this, hands pawing at the window, squirming in her seat. The sound her boots make against his car. Click, clack. 

_ Click, clack._

Once upon a time, she would shout up a storm, beating on the dashboard of his shitty car. 

Now her mouth is needy on his neck. "Come on, please. Stop the car. Let me kiss you."

"Is that all you want to do, Princess?"

Her eyes darken at the nickname, always. Wanting her freely gives him the permission to do this. Draw it out, tease her until she's writhing and begging and there he is, doing everything his sweet girl needs.

The seatbelts unlodge the moment he pulls behind Diyoza's diner and then it's hands, mouths, all the windows fogging up.

He's always loved Clarke, but wanting her gives him the release he didn't know he needed.

"Everyone knows what we're doing," he whispers in her hair and smirks when she shudders, clenches around his fingers. "You like that, babe? Everyone knowing that you're mine?"

She bites a bruise into his collarbone and Bellamy laughs.

"Why don't we show them, huh?" He flips them around, his hands now full of her body, her back pressed against his chest, the only thing holding her Bellamy's arm around his waist. "Show them how pretty you look for me."

He could watch it for decades and not grow tired. 

Her pale skin reddening in the pink and blue neon of the diner sign, so bright they can see it all the way from Polis. The small sounds she makes when she stops thinking and gives in to him.

He unwinds her with his fingers circling around her clit, her legs falling open.

"So good for me, Princess." He brings a finger to his mouth and tastes her, sweet and salty. "Delicious."

And then she's laughing, laughing as clear as day, collapsing against his chest.

"You'll be the death of me, Bellamy."

But not if she’s the death of him first. 

The first time he sank into her, he thought he was in heaven. 

They want each other with something more than desire. If Bellamy had to name it, he’d say it’s adoration. He’d say it’s a need. Like hunger, his throat is so full of wanting her. 

_ Park by the elementary school. Meet you there. Xx, Clarke_

And his sweet girl drops down to her knees and takes him in her mouth, drags his hands to her hair and tells him, “Talk to me.”

When they talk, they are careful. Both of them step over some things. But when he’s watching her writhe because he won’t touch her, because he wants to see her naked and wanting him for just a little while longer, they’re free.

“You feel so good, baby. Been dreaming of your mouth for months.” She gags and he smiles, caresses her cheek. “Such a good girl.”

Clarke hums around him, slides her hands across his thighs and climbs into his lap.

“So needy, huh?” he whispers against her neck, running his hands up and down her back. These days, he doesn’t know if he wants to fuck her or comfort her, but he’s getting a feeling it doesn’t matter. 

“Always needy for you, Bellamy.” 

*

It's not always good. Some day, the demons come out. 

When he was a kid, his mother used to tell him that fear is a demon.

Now that he’s older, she just hands him a bottle of tequila and says, “It sucks, but we have to make the best of it.”

On the day of Jake’s death anniversary, Bellamy calls a hundred times but Clarke doesn’t pick up. She’s not in her classes. Not even O, all the way in Michigan, knows where he is. 

It doesn’t take him long to panic and start driving.

He’s nearly made it to Polis when he sees her car parked by the bend.

The driver side door is open and his blood freezes over. 

"Clarke."

He pulls over with a screeching halt, races out of his car. It's dusk and the air is already cold. Her car is spotless. There’s not even a smattering of glass on the asphalt. 

"Clarke! Where the fuck-"

Her voice is barely louder than a whisper but it's there and it's enough. 

"Over here."

Clarke is sitting on the asphalt on the other side, her body shielded by the car. He inspects her for injuries first, but there’s nothing. She just looks a little broken and he scoops her up in his arms. Like a two-ton weight, she refuses to be moved. 

So he sits down next to her. Clarke motions at her empty hands, seeing something he isn’t.

"I'm sorry, Bellamy. I tried, I-" she shakes her head, laughs a little hysterically. She's so pale, so cold, wearing only her blouse and not much else. "I fucking _ hate _this."

The numbness, the grief, the anger that comes rushing out of her when everything outside is fine, but not in her head. She makes the windows rattle sometimes but Bellamy can’t even fault her for that.

"I know. It's alright."

He offers his body, at least a solid something to ground herself with. Some days, she shuts down like a sculpture he can’t get to. 

But that's human, too.

"What do you want to do?” he asks when the night has descended on them and the highway on the other side erupts in headlights and horns. “Huh, Clarke?"

She shrugs. "Can we stay here for a while?"

"Of course we can."

Bellamy brings her the half-eaten Snickers salvaged from his glove compartment and a bottle of Coke. 

"It's a picnic, huh?" he coaxes a laugh out of her, her first two teeth touching the candy bar. It feels like they are younger, he is all out of words that could offer comfort.

"It may be shitty but it's our picnic," she responds, tears glistening on her cheeks. But there's a smile there too, and he hugs her closer, lets her feel taken care of.

Bellamy kisses the top of her head. His girl for the end of the world. 

"It may be shitty but it's ours."

*

He passes his teacher's exam in May.

Clarke buys a bottle of nonalcoholic champagne; the kiddie kind with superheroes on the label, and they laugh at each other until their families arrive.

In September, they move in together.

They're moving fast and a part of him is worried, but then Clarke shows up with her hands full of mugs she's salvaged from her attic.

"Do we have room for these?"

"Of course we do, baby."

He's sweet on her, but who wouldn't be? She's Clarke.

When he's at his worst, she'll rip into him like a fucking lion, not letting him get away with anything.

When she's at her best, she wears all white to lunch and pretends the faked innocence isn't turning both of them on.

They usually end up in bed or in the back seat of his car, whichever is closest.

But behind it all is the fact that they've done enough, and withstood enough, to give into the guilty pleasures of living.

"You need my hands?" he asks one day, their bodies intertwined in their bed. 

Clarke's curls are stuck to her forehead and she's chasing release but it's not coming. There's a line forming between her eyebrows. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t get her out of her head.

She blinks at him, wary.

"It's fine," he reassures her, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. "I don't mind."

"Then yeah," she screws up her face in concentration, "go ahead."

"Tell me what you need."

It unwinds her. "Choke me, please."

This time, he can feel her clench around him, and Bellamy snaps his hips into her harder.

"So good for me, babe. So pretty with my hands around your neck, God-"

It's a sight.

And like always, it's the sight of her loving it so much that pushes him over the edge, makes him spill inside her, and kiss every inch of her body after they're through.

She looks tiny in his arms, but the sight of her after - reveling in the bliss - takes his breath away. Sated and lazy, both of them wishing they could waste their days away just like this. When it’s just the two of them, sunlight filtering through their bedroom window, and no sound in the world, it’s easy. 

It should be easy a little more often.

"Thank you," she says, quietly. 

Her hands are on his face, tracing every inch, every scar - even the one she gave him when she was ten and they played soccer together.

Bellamy turns to lie on his back, and stares at the ceiling for the longest time.

"There's nothing to thank me for. It's different now."

He's expecting her to ask: _ Different how?_

The question never comes.

Instead, she kisses his cheek and turns around, nestling into the crook of his body.

"I know."

*

They get married in early June a few years later.

It's a beautiful wedding; his mom cries. Octavia eyes them all the while, like he hasn't heard her asking Clarke if she's sure she wants to get married at 22.

"It's Bellamy, O. He's my person. This is it for me."

It's one of the things he deeply respects about her: Clarke always knows what she needs.

And when that turned out to be a proposal, Bellamy was damn grateful.

"You two do everything the wrong way around," O tells them later, exasperated with a bouquet in her hand. 

Bellamy looks at Clarke, but he can only see his resolve and joy reflected in her eyes. 

She hugs both of the Blakes closer and raises her glass.

"Here's to doing everything wrong."

And coming from her, it couldn't have sounded more right.

**Author's Note:**

> And there ya have it! 
> 
> Let me know what you thought - kudos & comments always make my day. :)
> 
> Thank you to the folks behind WTFluff for this prompt, and thank you for reading!
> 
> Find me in my trashcan @ [ marauders-groupie. ](https://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com) You can also check out [the fic photoset right here.](https://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com/post/187472261252)


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